A woman from England, who suffered terrible lacerations over her body when she walked into an unsafe balcony window while she was on vacation in Barbados, has had her compensation claim for Caribbean vacation injuries upheld by the Appeals Court in London.
In September 2008, Moira Japp from Worthing in England was relaxing on the balcony of her hotel room at the Crystal Cove Hotel in Barbados when she heard the telephone ringing in her room. Moira got up to answer the telephone, forgetting that she had closed the balcony window to keep the room cool, and walked into it. As she did so, the glass in the window shattered – causing Moira to sustain lacerations over all her body.
When she returned to England, Moira took legal advice from a personal injury lawyer, and made a compensation claim for Caribbean vacation injuries against the company with whom she had arranged her vacation – Virgin Holidays. The vacation company denied that they were liable for her injuries and said that UK residents should not expect the same levels of health and safety abroad as they would enjoy in the United Kingdom.
Nonetheless Moira pursued her compensation claim for Caribbean vacation injuries and, after her lawyer demonstrated in court that the glass in the balcony window failed to comply with Barbados safety standards, Moira was awarded £19,800 ($31,900) on the grounds that Virgin Holidays had failed in their responsibility to ensure that the hotel was “reasonably safe” for tourists.
Virgin Holidays contested the verdict, but at the Appeal Court in London, Lord Justice Richards upheld the original verdict and dismissed the appeal, saying that vacation firms were obliged by the law to avoid booking clients into hotels where they could not be reasonably safe. He added that Moira was fully justified in making her compensation claim for Caribbean vacation injuries.